Homme Eau de Cologne

Grapefruit blossom is the material to look at in Dior Homme Eau de Cologne, and it explains why this smells less like a sports fragrance than almost anything else at cologne strength.

The point about grapefruit blossom is that it is a flower and not a fruit. It gives a soft bitterness and a faintly waxy white freshness, cooler and more refined than a squeezed citrus, and it is the reason this registers as grown up rather than energetic. Bergamot runs above it for the first stretch, bright and clean with a slight perfumed bitterness that reads instantly as tidiness. White musk does the rest, and it is the quiet workhorse of the formula: soft, warm, close to the skin, the material responsible for the impression that the wearer simply smells good rather than that they are wearing something. Three materials and a plain structure. Nothing dramatic happens between the first spray and the last trace, and that is the intention; this is a scent built to be inoffensive in the best sense.

Cologne concentration means low oil and a short life on skin, so apply generously and keep it somewhere you can reach it again in the afternoon. It will not fill a room and it does not try to. It suits warm weather, close quarters and long days, it is easy to wear in any professional setting, and while it is sold to men it has no real barrier to anyone who likes a clean scent. It is François Demachy's composition, dated 2011.

Dior's scent and cosmetics operation belongs to LVMH. The couture side opened in February 1947 with a fragrance released in the same season, and the decades since have produced Miss Dior, Eau Sauvage, Dune, Poison and Sauvage.